Yes, folks, Joser the Joserian, the Destructor, AKA Joe Biden, appears ready to unleash his awesome power to screw things up once again.  Not that this would be something new, but the scope of what may happen is significant.  Joser seems ready to issue a Climate Emergency Declaration to save America from climate change.

What is a climate emergency?  Since climate is weather averaged over 30 years or more, no one really knows.

Could it have something to do with the summertime heat wave stressing electrical grids in California and elsewhere?  You might think so, but summertime heat waves are short-term weather phenomena.  This is not climate gone wild.  In other words, a heat wave does not a climate emergency make.

Has there been a sudden demand from the American people to do something about climate change?  Considering that only 1% of American families see climate change as one of their biggest concerns, the answer is no.

Is this somehow tied to our European allies?  Some of them believe so strongly in climate change that they have been closing coal-fired power stations for the past several years, just like the U.S., in order to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.  Unfortunately, these actions are reducing their electrical generating capacity to the point where they are endangering their ability to function as a modern society.  Here is a speech by Europe's High Priestess of Climate Change, Greta Thunberg, which explains how she and other true believers feel about the subject.

The most sensible question is whether there has been some radical change in the Earth's atmospheric temperature in the past few months or years.

Based on the chart below showing the temperature change in the lower atmosphere via satellite, it is clear that the temperature has been slowly rising for the past 40 years.  However, the temperatures in 2022 are very similar to temperatures in 2018.  How is that an emergency?

Does it have something to do with the climate change model predictions from the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change — the IPCC?

In 2008, the IPCC created four Representative Concentration Pathways, or RCP scenarios, to model the Earth's climate out to 2100.  Each scenario is based on the concentration of greenhouse gases assumed to be in the atmosphere over a specific time.  RCP2.6 assumes that CO2 emissions start declining by 2020 and go to zero by 2100, a model that is now obsolete.  RCP4.5 emissions top out in 2040 and then decline.  RCP6.0 has emissions peak in 2080.  RCP8.5, where emissions continue to rise until 2100, is considered the worst-case scenario.  If we are heading for a climate apocalypse, we should be tracking along the RCP8.5 path by now.

However, if we look at global temperature predictions from 2005 and plot the current global atmospheric temperature, we see something curious.  The current temperature is below all 138 model projections.

What conclusions can we draw from this?  Either the IPCC has been lying to us for the past thirty-plus years or its modeling program overstates atmospheric warming from CO2.

Where is the scientific justification for a climate emergency?  There isn't one because there is no crisis.  In fact, in 2021, the IPCC admitted that the likelihood of RCP 8.5 happening is low.

So, what is Biden up to?  A climate emergency is just an excuse to impose segments of the Green New Deal on the U.S. through executive orders.  Supposedly, the point is to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and increase reliance on renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.  This would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide the U.S. emits into the atmosphere and make the progressive wing of the Democrat party happier.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Joe can affect climate policy only in the U.S.  Note the chart below showing the distribution of carbon dioxide emissions by country.  In 2019, the U.S. accounted for 16% of the worldwide emission of CO2.  Meanwhile, China, India, and Russia together contributed 41%.

Of course, since China's and Russia's primary concern is dominating the world, and India's main concern is pulling itself out of poverty, they probably don't care about CO2 emissions.  Ditto for the 19% of the rest of the world, mostly poorer third-world countries who want to improve their quality of life.  So, despite all of the happy talk behind the Paris Climate Accords, it is debatable that roughly 60% of the world does not care about CO2 emissions.  Either they know that the whole thing is a farce, or it is not an issue that matters to them.

So, while Joser the Joserian is happily wrecking our energy production and distribution systems, forcing the rebuilding of factories, homes, and other buildings to meet more stringent climate restrictions, and demanding we switch to electric vehicles, the rest of the world will go on its merry way, CO2 emissions be damned.  They get dependable energy supplies, and we get wind and solar farms, which work when the wind blows, and there is bright sunshine, but not so well at other times.

Have you wondered why Joe Biden has been begging foreign dictators in Venezuela, Iran, and our former ally Saudi Arabia to pump more oil?  He has been doing this even though the simple solution is to loosen restrictions and produce more oil in the United States.

The part no one seems to understand is that this whole sham is not about saving the Earth.  Instead, it is about waging an economic jihad on U.S. fossil fuel industries, which are 8% of our nation's GDP.  It is about using the U.S. government's power to disemploy and impoverish the roughly ten million people who work in the industry.  This will weaken the economies of at least a dozen states, wreck an entire segment of our economy, and punish the Republican Party by depriving it of campaign contributions from the oil, gas, and coal companies and their workers.

While this happens, industries and unions friendly to Democrats, such as green energy, electric vehicle makers, the UAW, etc., prosper.  Not to mention that Biden's pals in China will make out like bandits, since we will have to buy most of the windmills and solar panels from them.

Last I checked, Joe is neither king nor emperor.  So if he is allowed to get away with this, what will stop him from declaring an emergency a week and ruling the U.S. by decree?  The damage resulting from this sort of Machiavellian scheme could be severe.

If you want to read something a bit different, I have written a fictional account of the World War 1 Christmas Truce of 1914 called, unsurprisingly, Truce.  The story is in e-book format and can be downloaded for free through the end of July at Smashwords.  Just click on the link.

Image via Public Domain Pictures.